Resid Akif Pasha

Resid Akif Pasha

Reşid Akif Pascha or Mustafa Salih (* 1863 in Yanya , † 1920 in Istanbul ) was an Ottoman poet and statesman who served as interior minister, governor and chairman of the State Council . He is known for providing evidence of the Armenian genocide during the sessions of the Ottoman Parliament .

Life

Reşid Akif was of Albanian descent and was born the son of the chairman of the Ottoman State Council, Mehmed Akif Pasha , and attended Galatasaray High School . He learned Persian , French and Arabic .

He began his civil service in 1883 as a special officer in the Amedî Kalemi with the title Reisülküttap . In 1902, Abdülhamid II appointed him governor of the Vilayet Sivas . Akif had the industrial college of Sivas and the cold thermal baths of Çermik built. A manor house opened by him in Sivas reminds of his work as a poet. After he remained in this position until 1908, despite his rejection of the Committee for Unity and Progress, he was called to Istanbul in the course of the Second Constitutional Period and served as Minister of the Interior under Grand Vizier Mehmed Kâmil Pasha from August 6 to 25, 1908 .

In November 1909 he became a member of the Ottoman Senate . After the end of the First World War and the years of the armistice under the Treaty of Moudros , Reşid Akif Pasha was appointed chairman of the State Council in Ahmed İzzet Pasha's government on October 14, 1918 . As a senator and chairman of the state council, Reşid declared on November 18, 1918 about the genocide of the Armenians :

“The 'mission' in this circle [Committee for Unity and Progress] was to attack the convoys and massacre the population ... I am ashamed as a Muslim, I am ashamed as an Ottoman statesman. What a stain on the reputation of the Ottoman Empire, these criminal people ... "

In a speech on November 21, 1918 in the Ottoman Parliament, he highlighted the process where official statements used ambiguous terminology, such as when the order of deportations was supplemented by the direct order of "massacres" from the headquarters of the Committee for Unity and Progress or partly from the residence of Interior Minister Talât Pascha :

“During my few days in the service of this government, I learned some secrets and came across something interesting. The deportation order was announced through official channels of the Ministry of the Interior and sent to the provinces. Following this order, the Central Committee circulated its own order to all parties to allow the gangs to carry out their miserable task. So the gangs were in the field, ready for their cruel slaughter. "

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Vahakn N. Dadrian : The history of the Armenian genocide: ethnic conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus . 6th, rev. Edition. Berghahn Books, New York 2004, ISBN 1-57181-666-6 , pp. 384 (English).
2. ↑ Taner Akçam : A shameful act: the Armenian genocide and the question of Turkish responsibility . 1st edition. Metropolitan Books / Holt, New York, NY 2007, ISBN 0-8050-8665-X (English).
3. ↑ Reşid Akif Paşa'nın özgeçmişi ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Resit paşanın hatıraları, Muallim A. Halit Kitabevi, Istanbul, 1900's.
5. ↑ Eski Sivas Valilerinden Reşid Akif Paşa, Vehbi Cem Aşkun, Yayla Dergisi, Sayı: 34-35, Sayfa: 7, 1945.
6. ↑ Reşid Akif Paşa, Hayatı ve Eserleri, Vehbi Cem Aşkun, Kızılırmak Gazetesi, Sayı: 499, sayfa: 2, 21 Aralık 1945.
7. ↑ Sivas'ın Ünlü Valilerinden Reşit Akif Paşa, Müjgan Üçer, Sivas Dergisi, Sayı: 4, sayfa: 16, Sivas, 1989.
8. ↑ Tarihi Türk Evleri Derneği Haftası- Sonuç Bildirgesi, Sivas-Divriği, 10-14 Mayıs 2000 ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Salnâmelere Umûmî bir Nazar ve Sivas Salnâmeleri, Nazım Hikmet Polat, Altıncı Şehir, 2. Sayı, Nisan 2009 ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Haluk Çağdaş: Şair ve Nüktedan Vali Reşat Akif Paşa ,. In: Tarih ve Toplum Aylık Ansiklopedik Dergi. Issue 159, İstanbul Mart 1997, pp. 35–39.
11. ↑ Sinan Kuneralp: Son Dönem Osmanlı Erkan ve Ricali (1839-1922) Prosopografik Rehber. ISIS Press, İstanbul 1999, ISBN 975-428-118-1 .
12. ^ Robert Fisk : Let me denounce genocide from the dock. In: The Independent . October 14, 2006, accessed January 26, 2014 .